Property Systems and Environmental Regulation

This chapter examines the impact of property rights on environmental regulation. It first considers a range of property paradigms and how they relate to environmental law, including entitlements-based models of property and resource allocation models of property, before turning to ‘public’ and ‘private’ conceptions of property. It takes note of the fact that environmental protection is a ‘public’ or communal interest, but assimilating public interest objectives into systems of property law based on notions of private right has been problematic, especially for Western systems. The chapter also analyses the interactions between ‘public’ interest and ‘private’ property rights; the role of customary law and cultural norms in the organization of property holding and resource use, using the Maori case as example; and how property structures foster environmental stewardship.